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Any options other than waiting it out for stubborn potty refuser?

vszappvszapp member
edited September 2014 in Toddlers: 24 Months+

DD just turned 2.5yo. She is very bright and communicative, and definitely knows when she is going to pee or poop. We do tons of naked time, which she loves, and she will sit on the potty (but pretty much only to watch a short video, since on the potty is the only time we allow that). She categorically refuses to even consider peeing or pooping on the potty. She knows that big kids do it, and she hates her diapers. We have tried really hard not to push her, and to just suggest it every once in awhile (met with a "NO! I want to use a diaper!!"). She likes to see other kids use the potty, have her stuffed animals do it, etc., but she will just not even consider actually trying. Ironically our German nanny had her using it when she was 9 months old, but once she could get up and walk away, all bets were off...

I really don't want to go the bribery route if we can help it, since she is smart enough to start holding us hostage for *everything* once we go down that road. Are we stuck here? My rush is that she keeps getting horrible rashes, even though we air her out a ton.

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Re: Any options other than waiting it out for stubborn potty refuser?

  • ashiscuteashiscute member
    Has she said why she doesn't want to use the potty?  Do you try to take her at natural times (before bath, when she wakes, etc)?  

    Honestly, wanting to be clean and to use the potty is the most important sign of readiness.  If she doesn't want to you can't make her.  Yes, you can offer m&ms or whatever but she needs to want to do it for it to work.  If she isn't ready then you need to wait until she is.  Stay away from bribery and use positive reinforcement as the reward.  

    I get about the rash because DS has ezcema and it tends to be worse on his lower back and we keep thinking if we can get him out of diapers it will help.  So far though he just isn't sure he wants to be out of diapers and there's not much we can do about it.  We let him wear underwear a lot so he can experience them and I think at some point it will just click.   


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  • vszappvszapp member
    edited September 2014

    @ashiscute- it's totally a control thing. She is SO headstrong and only does things on her terms. So honestly, as far as we can tell, she is resisting because she senses that we want her to do it (no matter how blasé we are when we talk about it). *Sigh*

    @theresat858 - not yet, since I have a feeling there will be a lot of screaming followed by a lot of peeing on the floor... but maybe we need to go there.

    Edited: typo 

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  • ashiscuteashiscute member
    vszapp said:

    @ashiscute- it's totally a control thing. She is SO headstrong and only does things on her terms. So honestly, as far as we can tell, she is resisting because she senses that we want her to do it (no matter how blasé we are when we talk about it). *Sigh*

    @theresat858 - not yet, since I have a feeling there will be a lot of screaming followed by a lot of peeing on the floor... but maybe we need to go there.

    Edited: typo 

    Honestly I'd just stop talking about it.  Don't ask her to go, don't do anything.  If going feels like her idea she might be more open to it.  All toddlers are headstrong.  They want to be big and mak decisions.  Let her make it.  
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  • cedentoncedenton member
    My son didn't really mind being in a dirty diaper, but he was waking up dry after 12 hrs at night and would sit on the potty if you asked him occasionally.

    He had no fear of the potty and would poop and pee in it.  As soon as we took away diapers and went straight to underwear (DC's policy) it took a few days but now he's like 95% potty trained for day.  He has gone two days straight with zero accidents and will tell us when he needs to go.

    Also, I understand the desire not to use bribe. I was resistant, but it works.  And it only took a few days before we were able to pretty much get rid of them.  Now I'll just occasionally give him a little toy or a piece of candy at the end of the days and say it was because you did so great on the potty.
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  • DawnJM25DawnJM25 member
    I didn't want to bribe, either. But we ended up going that route.  DD eventually forgot about the M&Ms once she was going regularly.  
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  • TiffanyBerryTiffanyBerry member
    She sounds like she's not mentally/emotionally ready.  My daughter was the same way, and it just made her madder and hate the potty more.  So I dropped it. When preschool got out, just after she turned 3, I said all the diapers were going in the wash (we used cloth) so we had no diapers.  She could do what she wanted regarding underwear or not (we had underwear and trainer options), and she could do what she wanted about using a little potty, or the insert for the toilet, or even going outside (we have a dog - that's what the dog does).  I warned her about the diaper wash (I actually really did need to happen... ammonia sucks) for about two months, so she had time to process it.  If she wanted her diapers back after that, I would have done it.  But she decided she was ready for it.

    You can't make 'em want to.

    If it helps, it was important for us to drop the "big girl" language.  That did NOT help my daughter.  She didn't want to be a big girl - she just wanted to be a her-sized girl.
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  • michelle7482michelle7482 member
    My daughter is 2.5 and doesn't want to use the potty, even if I bribe her! She's just not ready. I'm going to try once a month and hope by 3 we are there or almost there. FTR, she's also not interested in the big girl talk either. It means nothing to her!

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  • RamaLamaDDRamaLamaDD member

    CurlingRocks said:
    Agree with PPs that you can't force a kid to use a potty.  2.5 is pretty young, so she is most likely just not ready, at which point I would drop it.  That being said, my kids haven't had big issues with diaper rashes, but I can imagine I'd be less inclined to drop it if they were.  We prepped DS, who was very ready at 2.5, in part by telling him that he was getting too big for his diapers and that I didn't know if they came in a larger size, so he'd have to learn to use the potty and wear underwear.  (They do make diapers in the next size up, but he doesn't know that.)  A few days in underwear, and he was accident-free for the most part.  That was the best advice I got on PTing him.  Also, we didn't use M&Ms for bribery.  DS wanted animal crackers so we used them to reinforce poops on the potty and stickers for pee, which was only necessary for a week or 2.  He stopped asking for them, and I forgot to give them.  My friend used temporary tatoos with her D.

    GL!
    Temporary tattoos is an awesome idea!
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